The International Atomic Energy Agency warned today of increasing external power outages at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces. Located near the front line, the plant has experienced frequent power cuts that require backup diesel generators to maintain essential cooling functions.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the nuclear site has lost external power 24 times, with half of those outages occurring in the last four months. The agency added that a brief power outage occurred on Tuesday for an unclarified reason.
Military activity and reactor safety
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated in a release that the trend of rising external power outages is extremely concerning and clearly unsustainable. Plant staff continue to report military activity, mainly explosions, several times a day near the facility, prompting the agency to repeat its call for maximum military restraint.
Fighting has repeatedly impacted Ukrainian nuclear facilities, including Zaporizhzhia, which is Europe's largest nuclear plant and has been occupied by Russian forces since March 2022. Although its six reactors stopped operating after the site was captured, the plant continuously requires electrical power to run its cooling and safety systems. Moscow and Kyiv frequently accuse each other of risking a nuclear disaster during attacks against the plant.
